151. “Play” Like Yourself Every Time: Authentic Style and Creativity

What does it actually mean to have YOUR style?

Not just in how you dress—but in how you think, create, relate, and move through the world.

In this episode of The Modern Creative Woman, Dr. Amy Backos explores style as a way of being—a deeply personal, psychologically rooted expression of self. Inspired by a moment at a San Francisco Symphony League event, where a pianist shared, “I try to play like myself every time,” this episode becomes an invitation to examine where you may be editing, performing, or over-referencing others in your own life.

This is not a surface-level conversation about “being yourself.”
It’s a deeper, clinically informed look at psychological flexibility, authenticity, and creative alignment.

Dr. Backos weaves together art therapy, neuroscience, and lived experience to explore:

• Why over-referencing (social media, celebrities, trends) disconnects you from your own voice
• The psychological cost of self-editing before rejection
• How authenticity is built through alignment—not performance or perfection
• The role of novelty and neuroplasticity in reigniting creativity
• Why technically “good” art—and even a well-curated life—can still feel emotionally flat
• How developmental conditioning, trauma, and social expectations shape your personal style

Drawing on the artistic philosophy of Georgia O’Keeffe and the deeply original work of the Gee’s Bend Quilters, this episode highlights what becomes possible when you stop performing and start creating from within.

You’ll also be guided through a powerful self-audit practice to help you identify:

• Where your life feels natural, easeful, and aligned
• Where you may be over-editing or borrowing from others
• How to begin reconnecting with your own creative instincts

This episode is both a reflection and a challenge:

Where are you not “playing like yourself”?
And what might shift if you did—just once this week?

Transcript

145. Authentic style 4.5.26

 Style is defined as a manner of doing something. It could be a distinctive appearance. It could be something determined by principles of design. However, the manner of doing something includes how you do everything. In this episode of The Modern Creative Woman, we are talking about how to reflect on your own personal style of engaging with others, with yourself, and with your community. This is not a generic pep talk about how to be yourself. This is a challenge to put down the thoughts that are limiting you and to focus on psychological flexibility, thought diffusion, and the ways that you can feel most alive. 

I'm Doctor Amy Backos. Welcome to the Modern Creative Woman podcast. I'm a licensed psychologist. I'm a board certified and registered art therapist, and I've been doing this for over three decades. We're going to get into the idea of creativity and how finding your own style of creative expression will pay you back in spades. Let's get into this. Let's get this started. A couple of weeks ago, I went to an event sponsored by the San Francisco League of the San Francisco Symphony, and they're a fundraising group that offers education and really cool events to learn more about the symphony and to be able to understand classical music in a different way. And there was a musician there, and someone commented about his style of playing because he was so clearly engaged in playing the piano, he was completely focused and present and really inspired all of us to keep our eyes on him, as well as hearing the music he was playing. And his response was, I try to play like myself every time. And I wrote this down real quick on my program because I thought, this is such an incredible way of thinking about authenticity and creating a lens from which to view all of your actions. So I'm going to repeat what he said. I try to play like myself every time and I thought, gosh, I have been not always playing like myself every time. And I think when I was younger it was. This wish to appear a certain way, or to look like I knew what I was doing, or to appear in some imaginary way as competent or enough. And as I've gotten older, I feel much less of that pressure psychologically. Developmentally, I'm not in a place where I think about that as much. However, when I heard what he said, I try to play like myself every time. I definitely thought of ways that I was not. Specifically, I was thinking of art that I had been making, and my watercolors had been really inspiring lately, and they were less inspiring. The last few weeks I got started on a new project after I heard this quote, and I'm building a 3D model of space that I want to be in. So it's the space of an urban environment. It's San Francisco, and it's got multiple layers in this three dimensional space. It's made out of paper, different kinds of paper. I'll post some pictures on my social media, and it was a really great way to get out of the space where I was just paying attention to repeating and doing what works. And what I know is that what got me here won't get me to the next phase, and I can continue basic routines that are serving me. I take my vitamins every day, I exercise, I walk the dog. These are the kinds of things that support me physically, however creatively, artistically and spiritually. I have always thrived on variety and being able to travel, move around and go to new places and be in new spaces. There is research behind this, and their research shows that novelty stimulates our brain, and it causes us to be more in the moment and more focused on what's happening. And we stop moving on. Automatic pilot. So there is quite a bit of science for taking a trip, a retreat. Going into a new space so you could go visit a friend you haven't seen in a while. Go visit them at their house. Go to a restaurant you haven't been to. You know these kinds of things for creating novelty. However, I wonder how I could apply it more to my life, generating some more novelty in my day to day routine. I do a lot of the same things, and last week I confessed that I ate the same thing for breakfast every day. And so since I said that, I've started switching it up. Novelty really does allow us to continue growing our brain. Neuroplasticity depends on thinking in new ways and attempting activities that are slightly out of reach. A little more difficult than would just be easy or routine, but not so difficult that it becomes impossible to do. One thing I've noticed is this idea of over referencing, and that's about self-reference, or referencing what you look like on Instagram or what other people look like. I think this sudden obsession with Caroline Bessette Kennedy speaks to this over referencing effect. There are so few images of her style. And it makes it very easy to copy. You can go by that headband, the skirt, the boots and the Levi's. The sunglasses are findable and you can put on that exact outfit. And this seems so unappealing. From a creative standpoint, there were many women in that era who were creating groundbreaking fashion, and she was reflecting what was popular at the moment. But now, in this referential way, there are women all around the globe copying her clothing style because of a TV series about her. And if you know what her outfits look like, it's a small capsule, minimalist wardrobe that was pretty much everywhere in the 90s. Over referencing, copying, trying to obtain what others have, what they look like, what they do, their morning routines, etc. creates a big struggle and we all have to find a balance between learning from others and learning from ourselves and listening to ourselves so that we can play like ourselves every single time now. Authenticity is not just saying whatever you feel like. If you're an authentic person, it doesn't mean you're rude and you can just say whatever you think. Really, authenticity is that alignment between an internal experience and your external expression. There are celebrities who put on a great front. They appear to be very, um, innocent or naive or good. And then it turns out they have extremely deviant behavior that gets them arrested, gets them injured. And there is such a huge tension between what someone tries to look like on the outside and who they are on the inside and the. Closer those to get the happier and more authentic we are, and we relate to people in that way as well. We might enjoy someone who is kind and innocent and good in their public persona. When we can tell that it's authentic and it radiates this genuine aspect of being a human, we also like someone who appears edgy or kind of like the vulnerable, um, badness about them shows up when we recognize that it is authentic, that it feels true to who they are. What we all struggle with is when we see someone who is trying to behave in a certain way on the outside, and it's misaligned with who they show themselves to be on the inside. And it requires this, you know, conscious attention for us to put on that part of ourselves. We can see it in other people. It usually takes some assistance, some friends, a lot of journaling and art, a therapist, a coach to help us see that that consistency can really strengthen who we are and how we like ourselves. And if we always want to look right and good and have all the answers, but we don't. We're just starting out on something new. The tension between those is very far. It's like pulling a rubber band, stretching it so far, and we can't quite reconcile them. In thinking about artists who embody alignment between that inner sense of who they are and how they are positioning themselves on the outside, how their style is showing up on the outside. I thought of the quilters from Gee's Bend, and they are quilting in a way when they're at their highest art. It's called my style. It's when they are creating in ways that only they have created in ways that only they can create. They generate a new style, a new pattern in their quilting. They do it in their own unique way, and it is highly revered. Georgia O'Keeffe famously declared that I have already settled it for myself. So flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free. Her philosophy just allowed her to ignore praise and criticism aren't negativity. She could exist without responding to it down the same drain. She was really regarding anything that people were saying about her and her art as totally irrelevant to her process. She was looking at her work and making up her own mind, and for her, that was freedom. In that moment of recognizing herself as an artist, she could disregard outside opinions because when she did that, she believed she achieved true artistic freedom. I'm going to tell you her quote one more time. I have already settled it for myself. So flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free. I've been thinking a lot about how this quote I heard at the Symphony League. I try to play like myself every time. And the Georgia O'Keeffe quote really resonate with me, that if I am in a space where my own criticism and my own flattery can go down the same drain, I believe that my mind would be more free. There's simply negative chatter in all of our heads. There's really not much we can do about it. It's allowed to be there. It serves a purpose sometimes. Sometimes it's just habit. We don't need to respond to it. We don't need to act on it. And when we stop acting on criticism or overly dramatic kinds of feelings related to it, then we have freedom. The same holds true for owning our expertise. And I can own my expertise as a psychologist and a art therapist and not feel like I have an inflated head about it, doesn't pump me up in some wonderful way, and my own negative self-talk doesn't bring me down. There are many reasons why women will override their own natural style of just being who they are. And developmentally, it happens around puberty and in the junior high years and in the high school years. Developmentally, the task is to shift from family to the wider world and the peer group. And so self-reflection is a natural part of that. To be able to judge if we're fitting in or not fitting in has a survival purpose. It's adaptive for ultimately moving out, going away to school, or moving out to get a job. It has a purpose. However, our self-criticism can be so strong and other kids can be so cruel during those really early and quite tender years where we're just now growing and learning to think about ourselves. And so it can be coming from this developmental piece and bad habit of ongoing continuing that developmental criticism. There's also, of course, social conditioning where women are expected to be likable. More than competent in anything else. They have to be competent and likable. Perfectionism can often emerge from this kind of pressure, and we are conditioned by society to do things right. Trauma is another big factor in why women might override their natural style. We can think about what is acceptable success. We can cap put a lid on our ability to achieve, or how far we can go so that we can please ourselves, make accommodations for our significant others, shrink ourselves in some way. And that acceptable level of success is something that we have to consciously recognize and stop putting that lid on it. Another thing that happens for women is editing ourselves before anyone can reject us, and the idea of having to be likable, to get a job, to do well, to succeed socially censoring ourselves before anyone can reject us might have served a purpose in our early years. It is no longer an appropriate strategy. It will not help us, and it does not protect us from others rejecting us. We can do all the quote unquote right things to please a significant other, our boss, our friends, and we can still be rejected. That piece of editing before someone can reject us. It doesn't work. I think artistically, when we're engaged in overriding our natural style, we can create work that is, you know, technically good. It has all the elements of a nice piece of art, but it's emotionally flat. Now, the same holds true for relationships. How we arrange our home, how we dress might technically be good. We're wearing a belt because belts are in style, but emotionally flat. It doesn't resonate with who we really are. In the inside. There's that tension. Like I mentioned, when we see a celebrity who is inauthentic, it happens in our work and our art, and the closer we become to that external expression of who we are on the inside, the better we feel. The goal as we age is to stop watering down our self-expression and stop watering down our personal style. And remember, I'm not referring to clothes. I'm referring to every aspect of what you're creating. I love seeing women come to that place within themselves, where the expectations of others are no longer part of their thought repertoire. They are not focusing on what might someone else think, which is just an excuse to think about ourselves and judge ourselves. And they focus instead their thoughts on what it is they want to do, or how they want to serve, or who they want to be. In any particular environment, it allows women to move from performing to really embodying their true authentic self. When we can stop referencing others, the Caroline Kennedy, the celebrities, the Instagram style, the way other people design their home or raise their kids, when we stop that referencing where we're looking to others, we can start being original and you can look at design books, you can read parenting books, you can do all the research gathering. Talk to your pediatrician. You can do all of that. And yet you're the one who's raising your child. So you're the context for that information. But when we focus on creating the original experience of parenting, of designing whatever we're doing, we can let go of all of these referential pieces. My psychologist asked me to do an exercise a few years ago, and it was through a program that I purchased, and it sent some interview questions to people of my choosing. So I asked some friends, some colleagues, my mom, to answer these questions. And then the program put it all together is a way of understanding how others see me, my strengths, my areas of growth, etc.. And it was really moving to be seen through their eyes and everything they saw was true, right? They experienced it for themselves. They that's how they understood me. And it was helpful to see there are many ways of being. So you can think about your own kind of self audit. You don't have to go ask everyone. You can kind of do it yourself, but it helps to have this insight from other people talking to friends. You can ask yourself, where am I over editing my life? And what I would recommend is to get out your phone and make a video of yourself talking about where am I over editing? Where am I like borrowing and referencing others instead of looking towards myself. You can also think about where your natural voice really comes through easily. Now there are things that you find easy where it feels natural to do it. It might be natural to spend time with your best friend, or your partner, or your kids, or your dog, or going for a walk. There may be things at work that just seem easy for you to do, and you tend to get those kinds of assignments at work because it seems so easy for you. That's when you can recognize that your inner and your outer feel kind of aligned, and you got there over time. You didn't always know your best friend. Maybe you did from childhood, but you didn't always know your partner. You didn't always know your job. And so you've learned it over time. And in the beginning, it can feel awkward or uncomfortable. And yet over time, it became natural. And so putting ourselves in environments where we're able to kind of challenge ourselves in that way is really helpful. Before that, though, we want to recognize when are things going well for me? Where do things feel natural? And I think that's a really important piece that a lot of women miss. They start trying to change a whole bunch of things when in fact They need a little bit of an audit first to see what is working. I want to leave you with a little bit of a challenge this week. Start your audit. Make a little video of yourself talking about what feels natural and authentic and easy, and compare that to the moments when you're over referencing other people and other people's ideas. You can create a symbol of yourself in change for your art project, and reflect on how you want to understand yourself, and not about changing yourself, but just understanding yourself. And finally, I want to share one more time. The quote from the pianist that I listen to, he said, I try to play like myself every time. And so if there's a way for you this week to just be like yourself. In 1 or 2 moments where it's been feeling uncomfortable or too much tension. Can you do that? So now that you know so many more things about style and the tension between inner and outer expression, how to get it closer together so you feel good. What will you create? Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the Modern Creative Woman podcast. This really is a labor of love, and if you're inspired, I would love to have your review. It helps other women find the podcast. You can drop in five stars, or if you have a moment or two, you can leave a written review on any of the podcast platforms. It really does help move the podcast forward. You can sponsor the show. You can be a sustaining member for as little as $3 a month, and that helps offset my cost to produce the show. Have a wonderful rest of your week and I look forward to speaking with you in the next episode.